Branding a bottle of liquor seems like a big task, because it’s often a decently-large purchase, and there are so many distinctive, well known brands to compete with. There’s also a sense of instilling the brand with poise and distinction, and not screwing it up. As designers, we’d love to take a crack at it, with care.
The new Twisting Spirits has a bold and classic styling, using a system called “Colorplan” to brand each flavor of gin separately, making sure they remain easily identifiable. In addition, the colored bars on the bottles represent the level of botanicals in the particular gin. The larger the bars? The more botanicals used. Pretty clever.
Designed by Lyon & Lyon, the packaging is colorful yet mathematical in nature, feeling very grid-like and inviting. The subtle backwards “S” is simple yet does a remarkable job of setting the brand apart, making it feel fun and distinct. In addition to great branding, the gin sounds delightful, using natural ingredients to create fun and delicious flavors. Made in Oxfordshire, England, we’re excited to give Twisting Spirits a pour. Via MindSparkle Magazine:
‘TS’s gins have very distinctive flavours we wanted the consumer to experience each flavour before tasting it, which is hard with a clear liquid. We open sourced their ingredient data, representing every ingredient as a coloured bar, the more of it the bigger the bar. Each flavour is printed onto its own tactile embossed GFSmith Colorplan, so it feels like it tastes. The website layout nods to the early days of the internet, a nostalgic loading page takes the user to the option of arranging the gins by their ingredient of choice, and there’s a lot to choose from. It’s a great way to discover what flavour the colour bars represent on the labels.’
